Beth felt embarrassed.
"Epicures?" echoed Napoleon. "You don't know what an epicure is? That's a vulgar remark when you don't know no meaning of a word."
"Epicure? Me not know what an epicure is?" replied old Gettysburg aggressively. "You bet I do. An epicure's a feller which chaws his fodder before he swallers it."
Napoleon subsided. Then he arose and sauntered out to work, Dave and Gettysburg following. Van hastily drank his cup of coffee, which, as he had predicted, was not particularly good, and started for the others. He halted in the door.
"Make yourself comfortable, if you can here, Kent," he said. "You had an exhausting experience yesterday. Perhaps you had better lie down."
Beth merely said: "Thank you." But her smile was more radiant than sunshine.
CHAPTER XXVIII
WORK AND SONG
Having presently finished her breakfast, Beth joined the group outside, curious to behold the workings of a placer mine in actual operation.